La Llorona, Weeping Women of Echo Park

Directed by Henriëtte Brouwers

Performed in Spanish and English
Saturday June 21  y  Sunday June 22, 2008
at Echo Park United Methodist Church,
honoring it’s 100th birthday

These are the stories of women who have had to leave their children behind when they came to this country. Some became modern slaves and like La Llorona, the weeping woman, they wander the earth in search of their lost children.  With the recent wave of immigration raids, families are again being broken up as parents are faced with the prospect of being deported and of having to leave their American born children here.

Performance Excerpts

Malinche
In the year ‘Ce Acatl’, one reed, the god Quetzalcoatl will come back from the sea. Quetzalcoatl bears the symbol of the feathered serpent. He has a beard and cornsilk hair. He is the good god. The god of creation: of death and renewal. Creator of agriculture, education, poetry and crafts. The High Lord of the Aztecs, Moctezuma, shall abandon his throne and give it to him.
There will be a new era: a time of peace.
In that year; Easter 1519, the Spaniards approach the coast of Veracruz, with their ships, their beards, their blonde hair, and, feathers on their helmets.
Image

The mountains of Oaxaca became the refuge of pre-Columbian civilizations that were never fully conquered. La historia de la resistencia permitio a esta cultura sobrevivir y rechazar la mentalidad colonizadora.
Now, Oaxaca is a city under siege, but strangely so. In Oaxaca’s occupied town center, tourists browse through hand-woven skirts, wool blankets and painted wooden turtles as they walk amidst the tents and improvised kitchens of the city’s rebels. Graffiti on the old adobe walls reads: “The movement has no leaders; it is from the grassroots!” “El movemiento no tiene lideres, es del pueblo!”

Mamá dónde estas?
You must go Juana. It is too dangerous here. If you stay here you will die. I will miss you so much, but still, I’ll be happier to be able to hear you on the phone though I cannot see you I’ll know that you are alive.
I left. When I was here I heard that my mother was very sick. I was afraid she was going to die and I wrote this poem for her.

Con grito desgarrante y extremecedor
Te llamo y te busco can amor y dolor
Maaa, Maaa, dónde estas me hace falta tu calor
Quiero verte una vez más primor

De solo pensar de no verte me dá pavor
Me miro y me escucho egoísta mi amor
Per NO me dejes sola mamá, por favor
Mi vida sin tí mama no tiene valor

Mama la distancia para mí es castigador
Cruel justiciero y vengador
Con el transcurrir del tiempo me siento peor
Día a día me reprocho mi error

Recuerdas mama, todo era prometedor
La esperanza y la solución la plasemé de un color
Y lo pinté de rosa ese fué mi error

Mama a tu lado se acaba todo mi sufrir y mi temor.

Image

Niño: “Juany porque tu estas llorando?”
Juana: “Me voy.”
Niño: “No, no te vayas Juany. Porque tu te vas? Juany necesitas mas dinero?
Esperame por favor voy por mi chochito, toma todo mis, ahorros es para ti.”
Juana: “No puedo me tengo que ir estoy enferma. Te quiero mucho. Lo siento hijo.
I have worked for 3 years and 3 months now, 15 hours a day and get paid $250 a month. I had to stay: I wanted to earn money for my son, my family, my cousin who was sick. But is is not the money niño. I am locked inside and I cannot go near the windows because there is an alarm system in the house. It is like a prison here.
I am tired. I am depressed. I have to leave.
I know that there are other women who suffer the same way, women who work as modern slaves and who don’t know how to get out. I have to go. I have to stand up for all of us!
Lo siento hijo, pero te tengo que dejar mi amor, te prometo venir a verte te, lo prometo.”
Lo cual no pude cumplir porque no me lo permitio la mama del niño.
Niño: “No, quiero a mi mama, yo te quiero a ti porque tu eres como mi mama” — el llora desesperadamente.
La madre del niño entonces le grita al niño le dice: “Vete a tu cuarto! Ella no es de
la familia, no es nada tuyo, tan solo es una babystter.”
Entonces la mama del niño se dirige con gritos con mi y le dice: “Vete bye, bye. Go,Go!!!”
Juana: esta mujer es de Corazon de piedra. No le importo el dolor de su niño ni aprecio mi trabajo puse todo mi corazon y amor pues lo miraba como mi niño se rompio. Mi Corazon duele mucho. La separacion me acorde de mi hijo y llore muchisimo y sali susrrando.
“Adios mi niño”.
And I went, when I looked back over my shoulder I saw his little face behind the window, and the tears rolling over his cheeks. I felt like I was leaving my own little boy behind once again.

Llorona
No es extraño que las olas, Llorona        The waves bring in pearls, Llorona
Traigan perlas a millares                           It’s strange they don’t bring more
Si a las orillas del mar, Llorona                for I saw you at dusk, Llorona
Te vi lloroar la otra tarde.                          Weeping at the edge of the shore.

ImageThousands of indigenous people migrate from Oaxaca’s hillside villages to the United States every year. Miles de indigenas emigran de las villas de Oaxaca a los Estados Unidos todos los años.
La falta de oportunidades economicas en las villas de Oaxaca es el resultado de la politica economica Mejicana. For more than two decades, under pressure from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and conditions placed on U.S. bank loans and bailouts, the government has encouraged foreign investment, while cutting expenditures intended to raise rural incomes.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decided that undocumented immigrant workers are not eligible for back pay under the National Labor Relations Act. La Suprema Corte de Justicia decidio que los imigrantes ilegales no son elegibles para ser pagados bajo el acto de relaciones y trabajo. Muchos empleadores han usado esta reglamentacion como excusa para negarles a los trabajadores sus derechos.

Malinche:
Inside me a pair of eyes is observing everyone and everything, and nerves of the earth come to life in me and speak too:
‘These men of Spain know too little.
You must not pray directly for what you want.
You must pray that everything is the way it should be between what is inside you and what is outside you. Then you will have good harvests and good children.’
How can these men be Gods?
How can they be bringing my land good?
Tonight the sunset is blood on a black wall.

Image Mi vida y asi fue como conosi a un hombre que lleno el vacio que abia en mi Corazon. Y despues de eso salio me hijo Mario y yo pense que todo habia terminando. Pero no resulta que no y despues vuelve otra ves los problemas. El empiesa a celarme. Y a maltratarme fisica y moralmente. Hasta que me llego a los golpes. Despues de eso salgo embarazada sin saber. Y mi hijo Mario vuelbe a caer a la carsel. Y yo me dejo de este senior. Como arrimada con mi hijo Francisco.

Image LA Times, May 27, 2008
In a small community room behind Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights on a recent Friday, Matilde, 38, sat waiting to put her plan in writing. She asked that her last name not be published because she is an illegal immigrant. Her 5-year-old son, in a gray Spider-Man sweat shirt, fiddled with a pair of sunglasses next to her.
Organizer Rita Chairez called them into her office and showed Matilde a form letter. Le pide a los padres que nombren un custodio temporal para sus hijos en caso de que ellos sean arrestados en una redada. It asks parents to name a temporary guardian for their children in case they are arrested in a raid, she said. Parents should give a copy to their children’s school, keep one at home and leave another with the designated guardian. Chairez compared it to having a will.
“En caso de emergencia, cedo la custodia temporal de mis hijos a?”  She paused  “Who are you giving custody to?”
“Mi hermana,” “My sister” Matilde said.
After she answered all the questions on the form, Matilde returned to the community room and waited to sign it in front of a notary. She said she has been in the U.S. for 15 years. Sus dos hijos han nacido aqui y estan “adaptados a la vida en los Estado Unidos.”
Matilde had never talked about the possibility of deportation with her children but she would share the plan with her 11-year-old daughter later that day, she said.
“Si algo ocurre, los hijos estaran indefinidamente con una tia que es legal en el pais”, she said.
“If one day I don’t come back home, I don’t want them to get scared,” Matilde said.
Walter, who attended the workshop near USC, hasn’t decided what to do with his children. But he said he would start preparing, even if it’s just by saving “De a poco por si el momento llega.  Quizas, $10, $15, $20 por cada cheque del sueldo.”

ImageCanciõn Mixteca
Que legos estoy del suelo
Donde he nacido
imenso nostalgia
Invade mi pensamiento

Al verme tan sola
Y triste cual aloja el viento
Quisiera llorar
Quisiera morir
De sentimiento

Oh! Tierra del sol! Suspiro por verte
Ahora que lejos. Yo vivo sin luz y amor

Y al verme tan sola
Y triste cual aloja el viento
Quisiera llorar
Quisiera morir
De sentimiento

Oh! Tierra del sol! Suspiro por verte
Ahora que lejos. Yo vivo sin luz y amor

Y al verme tan sola
Y triste cual aloja el viento
Quisiera llorar
Quisiera morir
De sentimiento

Image

after the performance we pass on the callado (the shepard’s stick)

Project History

La Llorona, weeping women of Echo Park
Image

“We the disinherited sit quietly in the mossy smell of the great forest. Like me, these women are slaves.”

These are the first words of the performance, spoken by la Malinche the indigina princess, who was given away as a slave to the people of Tabasco in Mexico. She became Cortes’ translator, mistress and with him the mother of the first Mestizo. Her pain and the consequences of colonialism are still felt throughout the America’s and here in the US to this day.

In “La Llorona, Weeping Women of Echo Park”, the legend of La Llorona becomes the through line for relating the personal stories of the Latino women of Echo Park. These are the stories of women who have had to leave their children behind when they came to this country. Some became modern slaves and like La Llorona, the weeping woman, they wander the earth in search of their lost children.  With the recent wave of immigration raids, families are again being broken up as parents are faced with the prospect of being deported and of having to leave their American born children here.

En Español

“Nosotros los desherdados sentamos calladamente en el olor musgoso del grande bosque. Como yo, estas mujeres son esclavas.” Estas son las primeras palabras de la presentacion, hablado por la Malinche la princesa indigna, quien estaba regalada como esclava al pueblo de Tabasco en Mexico. Ella fue la traductor y querida de Cotrés, y con el, la madre del primer Mestizo. Su dolor y la consequencia del colonialismo todavia estan sentidoa lo largo de las Americas y aqui en los EE.UU. hasta hoy dia.

En “La Llorona, Weeping Women of Echo Park” las mujeres Latina de Echo Park cuentan sus historias. Mujeres, que tuvieron que dejar sus hijos e hijas cuando vinieron a este pais. Algunas fueron esclavas modernas, e igual que La Llorona, ellas vagan por el mundo buscando sus hijos perdidos. Con recientes incursions, families are again being broken up as parents are faced with the prospect of being deported and of having to leave their American born children here. deben que dejarlos de nuevo cuando estan deportados.

Directora: Henriëtte Brouwers – La directora Holandesa, Henriëtte Brouwers, ha actuado y dirigido obras de teatro en Europa y los Estados Unidos.  Ha trabajado como directoda asociada del LAPD desde el año 2000.  Esta obra es la tercera de una serie de eventos que Brouwers ha dirigido basados en la leyenda Mejicana de la Llorona, que recorre el mundo en busca de sus hijos muertos.  Obras anteriores: ‘La Llorona, la guerra’ que se presento en Pomona College y ‘La Llorona, en Skid Row’ que se presento en Skid Row.

The Cast

LLEP_2008_group2Juana Nicolas: Para crear una imagen diferente de la mujer.
Vitalina Rubio: compartiendo nuestra historia y nuestros cambios a través del tiempo.
Soledad Gomez: Que mi dolor sirva de ejemplo para  valosar a nuestros hijos y quererlos más.
Violeta Molina: Enviando un mensaje a través del canto y como una frase logra el cambio.
Yolanda Ibarra: Nuestras vidas es una historia de sofrimientas y alegrias, que con amor segimos adelante.
Lucia Yamuy: Persistir con la locura de imaginarse algo mejor, y que esta esperanza nos una para seguir luchando.
Henriëtte Brouwers: Thank you Llorona for bringing us together.
Mucho thanks to Hillary Enclade, Juan Rodriguez and Carolina Rivera.

Directed by Henriëtte Brouwers – Dutch director, Henriëtte Brouwers has performed and directed movement / theater in Europe and the US.  She has worked as LAPD’s associate director since 2000. This performance is the third in a series of performances Brouwers has directed based on the Mexican legend of la Llorona (the weeping woman), who wanders the earth in search of her lost / killed children. Earlier productions: ‘La Llorona, Weeping Women and War’ at Pomona College and ‘La Llorona, Weeping Women on Skid Row’ on Skid Row.

Project Funders

This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs artist in residence program and the National Endowment for the Arts.